Asha

Sorry, I think I misunderstood your question, R C-R. When I FIRST click the crop tool, it defaults to "Unconstrained" and the bounding box is the same size as the file. When I switch to "Absolute", I can enter numbers that are larger than the canvas, and the bounding box goes beyond the edges of the file. At that point, it will crop, and add transparent artboard to the canvas. I was not able to get PS to create a bounding box larger than my canvas with just a simple linear dimension and no specified dpi, but I was able to drag the handles to make it larger than the canvas.

Perhaps it is a back-door way to resize canvas, lol.

R C-R, yes, the crop box is bigger than the photo, and will crop, adding transparent artboard to the areas that had no photo. I should add--PS can be forced to crop an area larger than the boundaries of the file, but it is not the default behavior.

Chuck, did you notice if your active layer is a "Pixel" layer?

R C-R -- the default behaviour will crop outside the boundaries of the photo. I have replicated it with both "Absolute" and "Custom Ratio", and tried both inches and pixels (to see if there was a units issue). I have an iMac 5K with El Capitan and AP 1.4.1...

R C-R, as much as I appreciate your thoughtful posts and excellent contributions to the forum, I think you are really in the minority on this one. While I agree that there is a certain amount of logic to the tool, it is not one that will woo users from PS to AP. AP says they want our input--and there it is! There is already a thread in requested features--hopefully they are listening.

PS will take whatever pixels are available to create a linear dimension. For example, I have a 25"x50" 72 dpi file. When I create a 5"x7" crop with no dpi, it always crops to 5"x7", regardless of how large or small I make it. The only difference is that the dpi will vary depending how many pixels are in the crop area. The crop box does not change in W to H ratio when it is resized like AP does (which is very frustrating when using AP). PS automatically limits it when the dimensions are first entered, but it can be extended--if so, the artboard becomes part of the crop. However, I don't know who would try to crop larger than the edges of the photo. The fact that this can happen by default in AP is another thing that makes AP's "Absolute" crop tool seem particularly unintelligent. I agree that upsampling is a last resort, and really is only good to about 1.4-2x enlargement, assuming you have good quality to begin with. Even with pretty basic modern P&S cameras, there are more than enough pixels to crop and resample to a standard range (up to 8"x10") for printing on ink jet.

Quarki, sounds like you came up with a workable solution. For future, CMYK is for printing--colors for screen viewing should always be in the RGB space.

There are no layers in the develop persona...

If you don't mind me adding my 2c here--the first frustration with the crop tool is when an "Absolute" ratio is entered. There is no opportunity to input dpi, and while that may be fine, it may result in a crop box that is nowhere near the size needed, especially if linear units are used. The second frustration with the "Absolute" setting is that the crop area doesn't stay constrained when one of the handles is dragged. Absolute should be, well, absolute. It is not intuitive to resize the crop box if absolute measurements were input to the top bar. It should be locked at the absolute size, whether that is some linear measurement at native dpi, or pixels or whatever. The 3rd frustration, and this is more of a "nice to have because we got used to it in PS", would be if we COULD put dpi in the top bar, that would allow us to crop and resample at the same time. Here is an opportunity to be better than PS for cropping--you can put a dropdown selection for the different resampling algorithms in the crop tool top bar. That way if people elect to crop and resample, they can control the outcome.

I meant--for people with touch Cintique or touchscreens--is there already a zoom and rotate gesture? If not, that should probably on the list too!

Does it already have gesture zoom and rotate for touch devices?

I'm assuming the OP means that it more or less needs to be "square". Art materials, frames, mats, all have a hand-made quality and might not be exactly straight and at 90 degrees. Also, the camera may have barrel or pincushion distortion that makes straight lines look curved. Having photographed 2-d artwork, I understand the issue of trying to split the difference of all the imperfections that we see when we compare artwork to the perfect grids and guides within photo editing software.

R C-R--in PS, you can leave the dpi blank so that it won't resample. AP has an opportunity to make a BETTER tool than PS by allowing a drop-down of resampling options in the top bar of the crop tool.

Here is a thread in the Feature Requests forum--perhaps you can bump it and add your opinion! :) https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/17711-crop-tool-affinity-photo/?hl=crop

I also find the AP crop tool a bit frustrating. That is because I am used to the PS tool which will crop and resample in one step (eg, I can put in dimensions and dpi in the top bar of the PS tool). I agree that some improvements would be welcome. The best way I've found to use the AP "Absolute" setting is to use pixels and to drag the box without touching the handles. With linear dimensions (inches, mm, etc) the dpi of the document comes into play, and that can't be changed via the crop tool. If you want a constrained ratio that can be resized as well as moved around, then it is better to use the "Ratio" setting.

icounter--DxO also has Fuji film profiles, but it looks to me like your photo had some additional processing in the Fuji camera JPG engine. You can use Nik ColorEfex on a standard JPG (looks a bit like Bleach Bypass to me), then apply Fuji color/grain profile from DxO.

To those who received acknowledgement from Nik--that is a better response than I got. It tells me that they are starting to pay attention. Whether they can afford (or care) to update their product to support Affinity is another unknown.... I'm really a fan of On1 and DxO. They both have continued to keep their products current. However, Topaz has some really interesting tools that are a bit off the beaten path--might be nice for some more heavily filtered effects. icounter--you might try demo-ing DxO Film Pack--it has BW films pre-loaded. It currently doesn't work with AP, but you can use it as a standalone product.

Adding to R C-R's post--you might also have to change the layer blending mode.

Great review!

Hmm..while PNG is considered lossless, it does compress as JPG does. I wonder if that is the issue?

Yes, Hue will only work if there is a colored background. I liked the method of using the clone tool with Darken blending mode, too.

Is it possible that the lossy quality of JPG is smearing the noise?

I would like this in AP as well

barninga--yes, back in the day we didn't have whizzy one-click things like layer effects and such. There is always a long way around, and I agree that AP has the majority of what is needed, plus they have some whizzy tools of their own! Since I've been using PS for a long time, I often am unaware of the newest additions, so I end up doing the old ways regardless :)